Top 280 Jack Kornfield Quotes (2024 Update)
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201. “Our ideas of self are created by identification. The less we cling to ideas of self, the freer and happier we will be.”

— Jack Kornfield

202. “Yet I knew that spiritual practice is impossible without great dedication, energy, and commitment.”

— Jack Kornfield

203. “You have to accept the way things are before you can move on.”

— Jack Kornfield

204. “Great spiritual traditions are used as a means to ripen us, to bring us face to face with our life, and to help us to see in a new way by developing a stillness of mind and a strength of heart.”

— Jack Kornfield

205. “To undertake a genuine spiritual path is not to avoid difficulties but to learn the art of making mistakes wakefully, to bring them to the transformative power of our heart.”

— Jack Kornfield

206. “Attachment is conditional, offers love only to certain people in certain ways; it is exclusive. Love, in the sense of metta, used by Buddha, is a universal, nondiscriminating feeling of caring and connectedness.”

— Jack Kornfield

207. “The society that denies its poverty and injustice has lost a part of its freedom as well. If we deny our dissatisfaction, our anger, our pain, our ambition, we will suffer. If we deny our values, our beliefs, our longings, or our goodness, we will suffer.”

— Jack Kornfield

208. “When we feel anger toward someone, we can consider that they are a being just like us, who has faced much suffering in life.”

— Jack Kornfield

209. “When we take time to quiet ourselves, we can all sense that our life could be lived with greater compassion and greater weakness.”

— Jack Kornfield

210. “It’s much better to become a Buddha than a Buddhist.”

— Jack Kornfield

211. “Your world is reborn each morning. And you are allowed to start over, at least in spirit, choosing your way with a beginners mind. Open wide the doors and windows, or close them and sit by the fire. But wherever you are, make room for the new, the uncertain, the mystery... And Love...”

— Jack Kornfield

212. “In the end, forgiveness simply means never putting another person out of our heart.”

— Jack Kornfield

213. “The knowledge of the past stays with us. To let go is simply to release any images and emotions.”

— Jack Kornfield

214. “Everyone and everything is in some degree or other our teacher.”

— Jack Kornfield

215. “Skill in concentrating and steadying the mind is the basis for all types of meditation.”

— Jack Kornfield

216. “Then one day you will be sitting and fear will arise, and you will feel it and recognize it and think, “Oh, this is fear, I recognize you. Welcome back.” Then it is as if the fear becomes one of your friends.”

— Jack Kornfield

217. “An honorable spiritual practice recognizes the losses we have suffered, tells our story, and sheds our tears to free us from the past.”

— Jack Kornfield

218. “Live in joy, in love, even among those who hate.”

— Jack Kornfield

219. “How well we have learned to let go.”

— Jack Kornfield

220. “In truly listening to our most painful songs, we can learn the divine art of forgiveness.”

— Jack Kornfield

221. “Things are wrong and people misbehave, causing our hatred and suffering to arise. But however painful our experiences may be, they are just painful experiences until we add the response of aversion or hatred. Only then does suffering arise. If we react with hatred and aversion, these qualities become habitual. Like a distorted autoimmune response, our misguided reaction of hatred does not protect us; rather, it becomes the cause of our continued unhappiness.”

— Jack Kornfield

222. “Refraining from stealing: care with material goods. Undertake for one week to act on every single thought of generosity that arises spontaneously in your heart.”

— Jack Kornfield

223. “In opening we can see how many times we have mistaken small identities and fearful beliefs for our true nature and how limiting this is. We can touch with great compassion the pain from the contracted identities that we and others have created in the world.”

— Jack Kornfield

224. “The unawakened mind tends to make war against the way things are.”

— Jack Kornfield

225. “The light around someone who speaks truth, who consistently acts with compassion for all, even in great difficulty, is visible to all around them.”

— Jack Kornfield

226. “As desire abates, generosity is born. When we are connected and present, what else is there to do but give?”

— Jack Kornfield

227. “The first level of practice is illuminated by the qualities of courage and renunciation.”

— Jack Kornfield

228. “Religion and philosophy have their value, but in the end all we can do is open to mystery and live a path with heart.”

— Jack Kornfield

229. “The person who betrayed you is sunning themselves on a beach in Hawaii and you’re knotted up in hatred. Who is suffering?”

— Jack Kornfield

230. “Embodied courage chooses not to wait until illness or notice of death demands attention.”

— Jack Kornfield

231. “Nirvana manifests as ease, as love, as connectedness, as generosity, as clarity, as unshakable freedom. This isn’t watering down nirvana. This is the reality of liberation that we can experience, sometimes in a moment and sometimes in transformative ways that change our entire life.”

— Jack Kornfield

232. “We can bring a heart of understanding and compassion to a world that needs it so much.”

— Jack Kornfield

233. “Feel your own precious body and life. Let yourself see the way you have hurt or harmed yourself. Picture them, remember them. Feel the sorrow you have carried from this and sense that you can release these burdens. Extend forgiveness for each of them, one by one.”

— Jack Kornfield

234. “The path of awakening begins with a step the Buddha called right understanding.”

— Jack Kornfield

235. “When we ask it about our current path, we must look at the values we have chosen to live by. Where do we put our time, our strength, our creativity, our love? We must look at our life without sentimentality, exaggeration, or idealism. Does what we are choosing reflect what we most deeply value?”

— Jack Kornfield

236. “We need to learn how to honor and use a practice for as long as it serves us.”

— Jack Kornfield

237. “When we are lost in delusion, it’s hard to see even the most obvious truths.”

— Jack Kornfield

238. “To live in this precious animal body on this earth is as great a part of spiritual life as anything else.”

— Jack Kornfield

239. “You will begin to see desire’s impermanent nature, and you will also realize that you do not have to act on every thought or desire. You will learn that you can choose from the many possibilities of how to respond to desire when it arises, and you can discover a new kind of freedom, where you do not have to follow your desires, but can choose to behave in new ways in response to your desires.”

— Jack Kornfield

240. “We have so many ideas and beliefs about ourselves. We told ourselves story about what we want and who we are, smart or kind. Often these are the unexamined and limited ideas of others that we have internalized and then gone on to life out.”

— Jack Kornfield

241. “We each have been betrayed. Let yourself picture and remember the many ways this is true. Feel the sorrow you have carried from this past. Now sense that you can release this burden of pain by gradually extending forgiveness as your heart is ready.”

— Jack Kornfield

242. “To meditate is to discover new possibilities, to awaken the capacities of us has to live more wisely, more lovingly, more compassionately, and more fully.”

— Jack Kornfield

243. “We are rarely lazy – we are simply afraid.”

— Jack Kornfield

244. “When we let go of our battles and open our heart to things as they are, then we come to rest in the present moment. This is the beginning and the end of spiritual practice. Only in this moment can we discover that which is timeless. Only here can we find the love that we seek. Love in the past is simply memory, and love in the future is fantasy. Only in the reality of the present can we love, can we awaken, can we find peace and understanding and connection with ourselves and the world.”

— Jack Kornfield

245. “We need energy, commitment, and courage not to run from our life nor to cover it over with any philosophy – material or spiritual.”

— Jack Kornfield

246. “Our life is shaped and determined by our thoughts. Usually we are only half conscious of the way thoughts direct our life; we are lost in thoughts as if they are reality. We take our own mental creations quite seriously, endorsing them without reservation.”

— Jack Kornfield

247. “There is a palpable relief when I teach the perspective of nobility, of training in compassion, of non-religious ways to transform suffering and nurture our sacred connection to life.”

— Jack Kornfield

248. “Escape from delusion is not achieved through reflective, considerate, relaxed effort. It is achieved only through the most powerful and sustained thrust of all the physical and mental capabilities at the meditator’s command. Sunlun calls for just this.”

— Jack Kornfield

249. “We need to learn how to honor and use a practice for as long as it serves us – which in most cases is a very long time – but to look at it as just that, a vehicle, a raft to help us cross through the waters of doubt, confusion, desire, and fear.”

— Jack Kornfield

250. “If someone puts food in my bowl, I am grateful. It gives me strength to teach. But if no one offers me food, this is good too – I get to go on a diet, which I could use! If students ask me to lead classes, I am happy to go anywhere. And if they take me sightseeing, I love to learn new things to help my teachings. But if no one invites me out, then I get to sit quietly and meditate. This makes me happy too. Whatever happens, I enjoy it.”

— Jack Kornfield